Vision Serpent

The Vision Serpent is an important creature in Pre-Columbian Maya mythology, although the term itself is now slowly becoming outdated.

Maya mythology describes serpents as being the vehicles by which celestial bodies, such as the sun and stars, cross the heavens.

[2] The Vision Serpent goes back to earlier Maya conceptions and lies at the center of the world as they conceived it.

It is through ritual that the king could bring the center axis into existence in the temples and create a doorway to the spiritual world, and with it power.

One conclusion is "that massive blood loss causes the brain to release an abundance of natural endorphins, which are chemically related to opiates.

Every major political or religious event involved bloodletting because it provided a medium by which the gods could be called upon to witness and actually participate in the ceremony.

The Hauberg Stela (A. D. 199) from the Maya Lowlands "is one of the first dated monuments that depict the Vision Serpent's connection to bloodletting".

In her left hand, she holds a bowl containing a stingray spine, an obsidian lancet, and papers spattered with blood.

From the jaws of the Vision Serpent, spews forth an ancestral Tlaloc warrior complete with spear and shield".

Opposite Bird Jaguar is Lady Balam-Ix, who proceeds to pass coarse rope through a gouge in her tongue.

This lintel shows the queen of Yaxchilan involved in a visionary experience following an elaborate bloodletting ceremony.

She holds the ritual paraphernalia in her arms while the vision serpent rises from a bowl of blood stained paper.